Sex With Gigi

The oldest of my three older sisters once “caught” me trying to have sex with our family dog, Gigi, in the bathroom. The truth is that I didn’t even know what “sex” was at the time. I was thirteen years old, but because of what that doctor did to me during his “medical examination” I thought that my penis got hard so I could pleasure myself, not to have intercourse.

In other words, yes, I had my pants off in the bathroom, with Gigi between my legs. But, I wasn’t trying to have intercourse with her; I didn’t even know what intercourse was (and even if I did know what it was then, I realize now that it physically wouldn’t have been possible because Gigi was too small of a dog for that). All I was doing was masturbating, the same way the doctor had masturbated me just months before, introducing me to the perverse world of deviant sexual pleasure; this world.

My sister, of course, assumed otherwise. I had no idea at the time what she must have thought I was trying to do to Gigi. She hollered and screamed about me “trying to have sex with Gigi!” But, the word “sex” itself was still pretty much a mystery to me. I knew it meant something shameful, and that it involved the penis. Other than that I basically had no clue.

Most children know more about sex at age eight than I did at thirteen. They learn it from other (usually older) children, and combine that with what they hear from adults, see on T.V., and learn in school. But, this culture of sexual mystery doesn’t always result in adequate education for all children (in fact, studies have shown consistently that it rarely results in adequate education at all). In some cases, by mere chance, a child is left so confused about sex that masturbating on the back of a dog seems like a reasonable thing to do. And then when an older sister comes along and physically attacks such a boy for “hurting” the animal, the confusion only becomes worse, exacerbated to the point of desperation.

I’m writing this now in order to offer a glimpse into the confusing world of my youthful experiences that ultimately lead to my seeking “sex” with other children against their will. To call it “evidence” of “early sexual deviancy” is like calling a sweet tooth evidence of “latent obese tendencies”. It’s just silly. Except in this case it is a silliness that eventually ended up getting seven people murdered, when just a little understanding (i.e. non-silliness) could have so easily prevented the cycle of ignorance from coming full circle to its inevitable violent outcome. (see note).

[J.D. September 12, 2014]

(Note: If someone had taken the time to just talk openly with me about sex, and taught me what I wanted so desperately to know, I would have never felt the need to impose my confusing onto other children. Where were all the loving pedophiles when I needed one?)

What Happened In Prison – Part VI: The Streets

After over 15 years of imprisonment and psychological torment for doing to a younger boy the same thing that older boys and men had done to me all my adolescent life, I was paroled at last. But, I wasn’t free, and knew I never would be. My rage was my prison. It took a lot of effort to keep it hidden. But, I’d been practicing for several years, preparing explicitly for this very opportunity. Soon I would make society pay for what it did to me, but first I had to make sure I could hit them without getting hit back. I had to make them unwary of my intentions, and I knew exactly how.

I was the model parolee. I got my first job within days of my release, as a telemarketer for Time Life Libraries, Inc. I never missed a rent payment for my room at the Interaction Transition (I.T.) House in Seattle, and even saved up enough money within just three or four months for first, last, and deposit on an apartment of my own near downtown in a newly renovated complex, called the Tuscany, with all brand new appliances, carpeting, and bathroom fixtures. I especially liked the large mirrored closet doors that made my new studio apartment look twice as big as it really was.

I registered as a “sex offender” on my first day in Seattle, right after my older homosexual friend --- and soon to be lover --- Dave, picked me up at the Sea-Tac Airport. My mother was with him, and after a quick stop at the City-County building downtown (so I could register), we all three went to the Seattle Centre to celebrate my release. Nothing could have been more surreal than that day, especially looking up at the Space Needle with my mom by my side --- as I once did as a child only 17 years hence.

But, the unrealness of it all didn’t distract me for a moment. Most of my life had been one unreal/unbelievable moment after another. So the surrealness of my first day on parole was taken in stride. I hit the ground running without even giving any of it a second thought. I had a clear goal in front of me, and until I reached it little else mattered to me.

Of course I couldn’t let the obsession show, so on the outside, for my mother’s sake and for Dave’s sake, I was like a kid on his first visit to a Toys-R-Us store. Not that I didn’t feel the excitement that I projected --- feeling it was part of the art --- but deep inside, in the part of myself that I ended up referring to as “the dungeon”, I sat coldly watching myself pretending on the surface, knowing it was all just for show; knowing nothing was real, not my mom, not Dave, not my excitement, not even the city. Only one thing was real: my rage. It was the only thing in my life that never changed; the one constant that kept my head above water, and the only part of my reality that made any sense to me. It was my raison d’etre, and my love.

Everything went as I planned. I avoided all the traps and pitfalls layed out by the system to keep people recycling through the system once they are caught up in it; like the narc dressed like a hippie on the busride to work one day who asked me where he could buy some weed. If I had so much as just mentioned the part of town he should go look in then I would have violated my parole. So I said, honestly as it turned out at the time, “I have no idea, sorry I can’t help you.”

Traps like that are what account for the extremely high recidivism rates for parolees, not actual crime. Not that I didn’t commit a crime or two while I was on parole. I just never did anything “stupid”, like buying drugs from someone I didn’t know, or dropping my pants in front of someone in the park who wasn’t already hard and waiting for me to do so. Once I went so far as to steal a boy’s underpants out of an unlocked locker at a public swimpool, but I never said as much as “hi” to the boy himself, nor did I let him see me checking him out as he dressed into his swim trunks. In fact, I was always extra careful around children at all times. Aside from the underpants, which I only kept for a few days before I got rid of them as “too risky”, I never did or kept anything questionable in that regard. Unlike “stupid” pedophiles, I kept my obsession hidden deep in my dungeon, and very very rarely ever let it manifest on the surface of my reality.

That’s why I never got caught. People who “knew” me “knew” that I was not a pedophile, or otherwise sexually interested in children. I never sought children out in parks, or stores, not even just to look. I did not keep child related items or pictures in my apartment (again, with rare and extremely limited exceptions, like those underpants).

Once I was using the men’s room at the Jack In The Box restaurant on Broadway and a gorgeous little boy, no more than six years old, came in all by himself. I could have easily pretended to wash my hands while I checked him out and no one would have been the wiser. But instead I did what most men would do; I hurried up and got out of there before anyone thought it was even a little strange that I didn’t hurry up and got out of there. As it turned out the boy’s mother was waiting just outside the door, and she actually smiled at me when she saw me rushing out just seconds after her boy went in. I understood “the cod” of “expected behavior” around children the way most pedophiles never do.

I later reported this “incident” to my parole officer, who in turn reported it to the polygraph examiner, who in turn included it in my bi-annual parolee polygraph exam; I passed with flying colors when he asked, “Did you attempt to peep on a boy in a public restroom?” (or something like that). It was because of this nearly complete detachment of my “dungeon” from my surface reality that allowed me to convince so many people, including my parole officers, and psychologists, that I was not interested in children for sex at all.

In fact, I even started to fool myself, in a sense (actually, I had to fool myself first if I really wanted to fool anyone else). Only by fooling myself could I fool others without even thinking about it. But there still had to be at least a thin thread of truth that ran up from my “dungeon” or else I wasn’t fooling anybody. Without that thread of malice then I would have nothing to hide, and I would have been exactly what I pretended to be; an honest to God repentant rapist who never wanted to hurt anyone. But my act was so good that after a while I started to question my need for that thread. And that question ended up becoming a major source of stress and internal conflict for me.

Did I really need vengeance? Could I not live out my life without ever again thinking about all “they” took from me, and all the pain they cause me and my family? Couldn’t I just become the content, if not happy, person I pretended to be? Must I rape and kill, as I had for so long planned, in order to avenge my years of degradation, humiliation, pain, and fear?

I asked these same questions over and over so often that it became almost a melody of desperation in my mind. I honestly did not want to rape or kill anyone. I was searching for the way to an answer that would let me out of my real prison; my “dungeon”, as it were. But no amount of pleading, or rationalizing, or even good reasons could dissuade me from the one answer that overcame all attempts to change the course I was on. That one answer was simple and pure: I swore to myself that I would have my revenge, that I would make “them” pay for what they so ignorantly and so callously had done to me. It was that oath that gave me the will to live, and the desire to prosper, just so I could hurt those who hurt me, and my family. Justice is a cruel and demanding god, and one that is impossible to reason with. No real evil is ever done in the name of evil.

I was doing so well. I was honored as Rookie of the Year at Time Life Libraries. It seems I had a real knack for salesmanship. I averaged over $12 an hour with commissions, which was pretty good for someone fresh out of prison and no job history to speak of.

I also applied for a job with a Temp agency, and eventually got placed doing tech support for Microsoft’s Flight Simulator over the Christmas rush. My employer reports were so positive from that job that I got placed again almost immediately doing inside sales support for a medium sized software company in Brothel (just North of Seattle). They hired three temps to help with a new version release of their “Laplink” software, but they kept me on and even assigned me to a cubicle in with the regular sales staff after they let the other temps go. Amongst other things, I became the technical liaison between the sales staff and the new company-wide database technician. My job was to train the sales staff on how to use the new database software, and also relay the sales staff requests for changes and updates to the I.T. staff. This, and other aspects of my job, required me to communicate frequently with people from several different departments, including the CEO on at least one occasion. I was even invited once to a sales staff meeting in hopes that I could provide some “fresh input” of ideas (I didn’t), which really made me feel out of place, though honored at the same time. I never got invited again after that, but I did get invited to join the company softball team, which I did, and played several games that summer as a fielder.

Because of the increased income from the inside sales job (I never did any actual sales, I was more like support for the sales staff), I was able to afford a car. I bought a used (’87) Buick Skylark at a big used car sales event at the Northgate mall. Of course I did it by taking out a high-interest auto-loan, but I had a car! My first! (A week later I got a notice from the bank demanding a larger down-payment; money I didn’t have, and I almost died from the heartbreak of it. But my friend Dave bailed me out, not by loaning me the money for the larger down-payment, but instead by co-signing for the car, which satisfied the bank with his credit. Of course Dave got burned when I absconded with the car about a year later, but he was able to save his credit by just paying off the loan, and I eventually, though slowly, paid him back after I got out of prison and moved to Fargo.)

I loved my car, it had power everything, A/C, and the larger six-cylinder engine. The previous owner, literally a little old lady, who I met when she handed me complete service records from the day she bought it brand new, right down to every scheduled oil change and tired rotation. There was a design flaw in the engine mounts that caused the larger engine to vibrate the car at certain speeds, but other than that the car was in perfect condition. It was also the last piece of my plan that I needed to enact my revenge against society, and as such marked the beginning of the end of my parole.

With a car I had the mobility I needed to carry out my plan. And my plan was to establish a base of circumstances that would allow me to seek out and take advantage of any stray child I came across. This “stray child” strategy is a classic in the annals of nature making it a tried and true technique. I knew from studying police tactics and procedures that it is also almost impossible to get caught so long as you maintain stealth and distance (i.e. lack of connection to the “crime scene” and/or victim). The police rely on pure chance to solve crimes of opportunity like this. So, my plan was to reduce the odds; and a car was a huge odds reducer.

Another part of my plan was to act as soon as practical. I knew that the odds of completing my parole successfully were already against me. Being a model parolee helped reduce the odds of my being violated, but those odds were still high and against me. So, I knew I had to act quick, or lose my chance, possibly forever (note: I am relaying the frame of mind I was in at the time; the truth of all this is only relevant in so far as it is what I believed at the time – even though my current beliefs and understanding are quite different).

Interesting enough, though my focus back then was clearly on enacting my revenge much of the time, I still had a very active and sophisticated life in many other regards. Dave and I joined a club of gay couples that met monthly for social functions. I visited my mother in Tacoma often, and my sister in Poulsbo a little less often. I sometimes attended parties where I was invited by co-workers (at Time Life Libraries), and even got involved with a couple different women and lots of different men on occasion.

One of my parole conditions was that I enroll in an outpatient sex offender treatment program. At first I attended some weekly meetings held by a company that was founded by an x-con who got a doctorate degree in psychology and then started his company catering to sex offenders who were required (like me) to receive “sex offender treatment” as a parole/probation condition or court order. It quickly became clear to me that this was just another scam designed to get money for simply writing meaningless reports; in this case the reports were “treatment” reports to the parole/probation officers or court judges.

I never actually met the x-con himself. Even though he signed off on all the reports, they were actually written by one of several “therapists” who worked (or rather, did all the work) for him. In my case the therapist was an extremely manipulative and domineering woman with (to me at least) very obvious dominance issues over men. She ran the group meeting like a psychological dominatrix, controlling every aspect, and even steering the conversations with obvious manipulative tactics in order to get the men to say what she needed them to say for her reports. If anyone failed to cooperate, like me for instance, she would stir the group into a frenzied and practiced attack on that person’s position, whatever it might be.

I couldn’t believe the kind of garbage therapy she was dishing out for those men. Just for example, I remember one man disclosing to her (in group) that he had had anonymous sex with men in a public park. Her advice was to seek anonymous sex at a sex club instead. She referred to this as a “responsible alternative”.

At the time I had never heard of either (public sex or sex clubs; yes, I was that naïve; remember, I had been incarcerated since I was 16, and a very inexperienced 16 at that). So for me it was all food for my own perversions (i.e. it made me “sicker”).

I ended up getting permission from my parole officer to change to a private therapist who specialized in therapy for gay men, not sex offenders. His rates were a bit higher, but the sessions were one-on-one, much closer to where I lived (the previous meetings were in Bellevue, a long bus ride at the time for me, and late in the evening so if I missed my bus I wouldn’t be able to get home), and less frequent (monthly instead of weekly).

Most parole officers would never have approved such a change. But my first parole officer in Seattle was close to retirement and more interested in treating his charges like human beings than x-cons. I really respected him for this. I had to switch to a downtown parole officer when I moved out of the I.T. House into the Tuscany apartment, so I only had him for short time. But I honestly believe that he was the one who really made me question my need for revenge against society. Not that I ever spoke to him about it, but the way he spoke to me, and treated me, made me feel welcomed and wanted. I really think that if I could have kept him as my parole officer that I might have actually successfully completed my parole (i.e. gave up my desire for revenge and become a “responsible” member of society). I make this claim based on the fact that every time I chose the path of revenge (or, “justice” as it is often called from the other side of the fence) I did so as a direct consequence of some major rejection. So, feeling wanted and accepted, especially by an official officer of society, really made a big difference in how I felt in general, the choices I made, and in my overall reaction to any rejections I experienced.

The subsequent parole officers I was assigned to treated me like an x-con, always with suspicion and cold detachment. Shortly after my move to the Tuscany and getting a new parole officer (my first parole officer actually vouched for me so I could get into the Tuscany, and the manager --- a restricted marine who, along with his wife, became my friends and invited me over for dinner on occasion --- told me later that when he found out I was a sex offender he was going to reject my application, until my parole officer convinced him to give me a chance; any other parole officer would have remained “neutral” in a situation like that and I would have been rejected once again) I was soon visiting public parks at night looking for some anonymous “acceptance” that I desperately needed just to feel “normal”. I did this, of course, without telling anyone, not even my lover, Dave. I always used “protection” at least, and the cops, undercover or not, were always so obvious I could avoid them easily. The only real threat was getting mugged or otherwise assaulted, but that was a threat no matter what I was doing (and it only happened once, when a man decided he wasn’t finished pleasuring himself after I was, so he grabbed my privates to prevent me from leaving and I just coldly told him, “If you don’t let go, in three seconds I’m going to break your neck.” He calculated the threat for two seconds, then let go, and that was that). I never took risks with STDs, by not using a condom for example, and I always made sure there was enough light so I could inspect the bodies I had sex with before doing so. And I never caught so much as crabs or anything else, which I admit was some luck, but mostly caution (you might be surprised to learn how cautious most other men were as well, the in-cautious ones don’t last long by virtue of simple natural selection at work).

I got along so well with the “gay therapist” that he invited me to attend an annual retreat that he held for select clients, all expenses paid! This was shortly after I had bought my car, but still living in the Tuscany apartment. The therapist convinced me to leave my car in the garage (a small parking space that cost me an additional $120 a month in the basement of the Tuscany) and car pool with another one of his clients, Dave “Wingy” Wingert, who turned out to be a popular day-time radio show host for one of the biggest stations in Seattle. I had never heard of him before (I wasn’t much into day-time radio) but he was nice and we got along famously (get it? “famously”?). He had just bought a “pre-owned” Lexus, and was happy to take it out for a stretch, and “share the wealth”, so to speak, with someone less fortunate. (Actually, for what he told me he paid for the only slightly used Lexus I wasn’t very impressed. It seemed to me that the main “feature” of the car was the name, “Lexus”. My Buick Skylark had everything his Lexus had, except the price tag and the name brand.)

The retreat was on the Eastern slopes of the Cascade mountain range, in a modern cabin next to a stream set in the forest, but with several other similar cabins all neatly lined up in a row along the stream; extremely bourgeois. We slept in our own sleeping bags (one of the “must bring” items) on narrow bunks that seemed to occupy odd places throughout the cabin (like along the stairs, and in the upstairs foyer). There were about ten or eleven other “clients” in attendance, and the activities as I recall centered around group meetings in the cabin dayroom (though instead of sitting around in chairs arranged in a circle like some typical therapy group we sat on far more comfortable cabin furniture arrange haphazardly).

Aside from “Wingy” and the therapist (whose name I just remembered was Glen), there were only two other men at this retreat who stand out in my memory. The first was the top psychiatrist from the University of Washington’s psychological trauma research center, who despite the retreat “rule” of no sex, screwed my brains out several times over that weekend (when I tried to apologize to Glen later about so flagrantly break the rules he said, “No problem”. The other retreat members, who couldn’t avoid knowing that we were having sex every chance we got, thought it was “very romantic”. Glen was referring to the fact that on the second night of the retreat, the professor and I shared the same sleeping bag outside on the back porch, “under the stars”. Of course the real reason we slept “under the stars” was so we could have a little privacy to do, you know what!).

It seems I have a thing for successful doctors, as I’ve had flings with several over the years. Or, maybe it's they who have a “thing” for me; I don’t know. All I know is that when someone tells me they’re a doctor I become like putty for them to do with what they like. (I wonder now how much that has to do with the fact that my very first orgasm, at the age of thirteen, was at the hands of a doctors as I lay with my pants down on his examining table while he masturbated me. When it happened I had no idea what an orgasm was, so I had no idea I was technically being “molested”: all I knew was that it felt good; very, very good.) Needless to say, I didn’t initiate anything with the doctor at this retreat, I just went along with whatever he wanted, and that seemed to turn him on more than anything. I admit though, I was certainly turned on as well. Not only because he was a successful doctor, but also because he was tall (taller than me by several inches; hence over 6’3”), muscular, and good-looking, which made him practically irresistible to my libido (which he seemed to know well). I saw him a couple of times more after the retreat, but as it turned out our personalities clashed (we were both sexual narcissists), so it never went any further than that.

The other man that I remember from this retreat was a short overweight balding man. He was also, I found out later, the wealthiest man there. I was told that he was the owner and CEO of a mid-sized manufacturing company in Seattle with over a thousand employees. But that’s not the reason I remember him (money has never impressed me much, especially not at that point in my life). What I remember about him is what he said to me during a trust-building exercise that Glen asked us to do as part of the retreat.

It was in the afternoon of the second day (a Saturday), before the doctor and I had had a chance to get really steamy (that happened Saturday evening). Glen had asked everyone to pair off in twos, and I was approached by this fat bald guy and asked I I’d be his partner for the exercise. I agreed for no particular reason, and then Glen instructed everybody to find a private space to talk, and to share a secret with each other.

My “partner” and I headed out back down toward the stream. I honestly don’t remember what “secret” I shared with him (though it certainly wasn’t anything about the contents of my “dungeon”) but his “secret” stands as one of the many shocking revelations I received relatively late in my life. This man, this multi-millionaire and CEO of his own successful company, told me, the x-con/sex offender (by this time I had already voluntarily disclosed that information), that he secretly wished he could be a popular and likeable person, like me!

Like me?!

I was flabbergasted! Everyone else at this retreat were very successful gay members of society. I was a social outcast invited on a whim by a therapist who probably just wanted to fill an empty bunk (that’s what I thought at the time, but I realized later that Glen genuinely respected me as a person and knew I would be accepted by these men for who I was, which he thought would be “therapeutic” for me; Glen was one of those rare souls who understood naturally what a person needs to “heal”). Once more I was learning that the negative way in which I saw myself wasn’t how other people saw me. I grew up believing I was an ugly child, but all my childhood pictures show a genuinely beautiful and healthy boy! I thought I was stupid too, and a slow learner. But even though I had only completed the ninth-grade when I got to prison all the academic level tests showed me to be at college levels for all categories! And now, after believing all my life that I was an unlikeable “dork”, I was being told by a man with no ulterior motives that I was popular, and likeable! Wow!

I actually ended up consoling this guy with platitudes that emphasized the fact that I did not see myself as popular at all, and if I were, then there was certainly nothing to be desired about it since I could perceive no benefits from being so. But his “secret” stuck with me, and has helped open my eyes to how I so often deceive myself, both positively and negatively, ever since.

As I already mentioned, throughout all my adventures on parole in Seattle I was constantly struggling with the “monster” that lurked menacingly in the dungeon of my mind. I had never anticipated such a struggle to ensue and was quite unprepared for it. The question remained: Should I compromise my private principles by breaking such a sacred promise to myself; the promise that “kept me alive” all those years of unjust torment, the promise to get even? Or, should I take my revenge as planned, without remorse, and with clear conscience? There were a couple of incidents that finally pushed me over the ledge of retribution, but in hindsight I was destined to be pushed over that ledge one way or another by sheer proximity alone. It’s one thing to visit the edge, look down, then back away. It’s completely another to just stand there, looking both ways over and over, trying to decide whether or not to jump, until it’s too late.

Well, not surprisingly, I didn’t jump. I got pushed. And one of the people who pushed me was the new polygraph examiner. He was an x-cop, and unlike the previous examiner, who seemed to actually want to help a parolee pass their routine exams, this pig clearly brought his “good guy, bad guy” attitude with him into the exam room, and all x-cons --- as far as he was concerned --- were the bad guys.

I only ended up being examined by him twice, and both times he pushed and pushed and pushed, until he had what he wanted; proof that I was a “bad guy”.

The first time he examined me caught me completely off guard. Though I had been struggling with my conscience, I had not yet done anything that could seriously be considered a real violation of my parole. This x-cop decided otherwise. During the pre-exam interview I disclosed to him (thinking he’d be on my side) that I had accidently picked up my brother’s handgun, which he had removed from his belt and set next to the computer in my apartment during a visit. I explained that the holster it was in looked like a triangular wallet, and completely concealed the weapon inside. I told the examiner that I didn’t realize it was my brother’s gun (which I knew he was licensed to carry concealed) until I felt the weight of it in my hand, at which time I scolded my brother for even having it in my apartment, and asked him to take it out and lock it in his car.

Now, I’m tempted here to leave my story about “the gun incident” just as I told that x-cop examiner. But, the truth is that in an effort to befriend my brother during the visit I had expressed an interest in his gun, that I knew he was very proud of and always had on him. I asked him to show it to me, at which point he removed it from the holster, ejected the clip, insured the champer was empty, then handed it to me unloaded. I feigned fascination for his sake, then handed it back. I then explained to my brother that even being near a gun could potentially get me in trouble, and asked him not to bring it, or at least not mention it, when he visits. The only reason I told the polygraph examiner anything was to avoid a “fail” on a question like, “Have you touched a gun or any other weapon in violation of your parole?”

Well, I actually passed that particular polygraph exam, but that oinker filed a report about the “gun incident”, calling it a “parole violation” and possible criminal offense. The exam was on a Friday evening, so I had to go the entire weekend thinking I would be arrested on the violation on Monday, as soon as my parole officer saw the report. That was all the “push” I needed. Even though on Monday, when I called my P.O. to get the bad news, she told me not to worry about it. She said she had to submit the report to the parole board, but that she was recommending no violation. I thought I “skated” on that one, but the close call only reminded me of how terribly easy it would be for me to get violated for some completely stupid and unexpected reason at any time, in spite of all my efforts to be a model parolee.

When the parole board saw the report they ordered that I be arrested and held for a violation hearing. But, that was many months (as I recall) later. In the meantime I had gotten the push I needed to step up my plans for personal justice before I lost my chance, possibly forever. (A “deadly weapon” possession charge could send me back to prison for at least ten years, or more, and Washington state was notorious for taking criminal charges to the extreme limits. They once convicted a man for manslaughter after he was arrested for eluding the police, because one of the “investigating officers” at the arrest scene walked off a cliff in the dark and fell to his death, while the suspect sat handcuffed in the back of a squad car! And that’s just one example of the state’s insane lust for what I calls “justice”. So in my mind I had good reason to fear being arrested at any time for almost anything, just because in the state’s mind I was a “criminal” and therefor fair game).

Consequently I redoubled my efforts to find a vulnerable child to kidnap, rape, and murder (because that’s exactly what I felt was “expected” from me, or at least “feared”; thus making it the most potent “punishment” I could invoke personally against my most feared and hated enemy, the “faceless” society that condemned me as a child and took my life away before I even understood what life was) as my “poetic” revenge. Any question of ever being able to forgive “them” and move on with my life was answered by that x-cop polygraph examiner’s accusations: NO! He made it imminently clear that I could never have my life back, that I would never be accepted by society no matter how hard I tried to be “normal”. And worst of all, that I would always be forced to live in fear of my prison nightmare happening all over again, at any time, for any reason. That “pig” being the pig he was, accomplished exactly what he wanted, to make me feel HIS power and control over my life, and my lack of power and control over my own life. That’s what pigs do, ignorantly believing that their imposed dominance will somehow make things better, and completely ignoring the so very obvious fact that it consistently only makes things worse. (My first parole officer was no such pig. More people like him in positions of “authority” in this world would make for far fewer people like me.)

(I should emphasize again, that I am relaying my thinking at that time as best as I can, and that this is not necessarily my thinking now; i.e. I have since broadened my understanding, to say least.)

I got my chance on July 5^th, 1996. It was just a week before I was planning to move in with a couple of gay meth-heads, paying them $250 a month for an extra room in the house they rented together right on the North Seattle city limit line. The move was meant to save money. Rent had gone up at the Tuscany, and the expense of a parking space, not to mention the car itself, was a little more than I could afford; I had bit off more than I could chew, and this move was my first step backward from all the progress I had been making until then.

Joe and Ed tried real hard to be accepted as a regular gay couple. My friend, Dave, had met them, apparently the same way he met me, through a personal ad in the Seattle Gay News (I don’t remember ever asking whose ad it was, but I’m sure it was Dave’s). I never used meth with them, and they kept their meth use to themselves. But we smoked a lot of pot together.

But, before I moved in I was in their neighborhood visiting my lady-friend, Dee. I picked her up at her home, took her to a Dairy Queen restaurant, and bought enough ice cream for her and her family (two young girls and estranged husband, who stayed home) and a sundae for myself. When I dropped her off back at her house (she lived about five blocks west of Joe and Ed’s house just across Aurora Avenue) her husband, Lee, came outside and started yelling at me for taking Dee away from her family obligations. Instead of just driving away, as Dee tried to get me to do, I rolled down my window and invited him to say his piece.

Apparently he, Dee, and the girls, had planned to watch a rented movie together as a family when I showed up “out of the blue”; and ran off with the children’s mother. I listened to his complaint patiently, but instead of defending myself, or Dee, I simply told him that his was a grown woman responsible for her own choices, and if he had any issues with her decisions then he needed to talk to her, not me. I have to give the man some respect though, because as clearly offended as he rightfully was, he was still able to see the logic in my reasoning, and promptly aborted his verbal assault on me and went inside, presumably to finish the conversation with Dee. (I actually spoke to Dee about this whole incident later, and told her that I had to take sides against her in that case: she should have put her family ahead of me, and I made sure she understood that in the future I hoped she would.)

So anyway, after dropping Dee off I drove onto Aurora Avenue, but instead of heading home downtown I decided to find someplace to pull over so I could eat my ice cream before it melted. I spotted some children out in front of a motel at the same time and decided to park across the Avenue in an empty parking lot from where I could see the motel as I ate my ice cream. By the time I had parked in a secluded enough spot I could no longer see any children at the motel, but the main reason I stopped was to enjoy my sundae, so that’s what I did.

What happened next was a point of no return in the tragic course of my life. My struggle to decide if I would take revenge, and become the child rapist/killer that society feared and expected at the same time, seemed to finally resolve itself (though, as I have admitted many times since, I actually made the decision long before it became evident to me).

As I sat quietly enjoying my ice cream, I saw two young girls suddenly appear out of nowhere and dart across the five lanes of Aurora Avenue almost directly in front of me. They crossed the road coming in my direction, but then quickly passed out of my view to my right because I was parked right next to a building (to be in its shadow). But, it was clear to me that they were unescorted and up to some sort of mischief.

I remember clearly the thought that went thought my head at that very moment: “You stupid little girls!”

I opened my door and dropped the remains of the sundae on the concrete, then started the car and pulled onto Aurora in their direction. I saw them walking hurriedly on the shoulder and then as I drove past they veered off the road completely and into the shadows between two closed business buildings. I knew if I could catch them there they’d be mine, free and clear; nobody would see anything.

Everything seemed to just fall into place for me to kidnap those girls. I pulled around the block and parked in the shadows of some tall bushes on a side street behind the businesses where I saw the girls disappear. Then I got out and walked half a block to where I thought they’d be. But, when I got there the girls were nowhere in sight. So I quickly gave up and headed back for my car, and that was when I spotted them climbing over a low concrete wall coming out from behind another closed business. They were directly in front of me and I had caught them in the act of trespassing; stupid little girls indeed!

No planned kidnapping could ever have worked out so perfectly. I had only tell the girls that I owned the property that they were just caught trespassing on, and that gave me all the “authority” I needed to accost and question them. I ordered them back behind the building that they had just come from, under the pretense that I wanted to see what they were doing back there. Then I asked several questions to determine exactly how vulnerable they were: Where do you live? At the motel across the avenue. Why are you here? Our brother sent us out to buy cigarettes from the vending machine in the lobby, but we wanted to explore. Where is your mother? She’s playing bingo. What are your names? I’m Carmen, she’s Sammiejo. We’re half-sisters (though Carmen was clearly the younger of the two, she was the dominant and assertive one). How old are you? I’m nine; I’m eleven. Do you realize how much trouble you are in right now? No answer, just wide eyes.

It so happened that I had parked my car directly next to the place where the narrow alley behind the building (where the girls were) came out to the side street, and in a shadow, so it was easy to get the girls into my car with no chance of anyone seeing anything. I told the girls I was only going to teach them a lesson, but I already knew by this point that I was going to rape and kill them both, all according to plan. Justice was to be had after all!

I drove the girls --- both crouched on the floor of the car --- out to a location in Bothell near to where I worked for the software company. It was an abandoned farm house that I’d found on a lunch break once while driving around for the fun of it. I parked behind the house, then told the girls they could get up off the floor. Sammiejo sat up front with me and Carmen was in the backseat. I remember there was a full moon that night and as I sat waiting to make sure all was quiet (and that I hadn’t been followed by the cop car I saw a few moments before), Sammiejoe asked some childish question about the moon and I answered as if she were a niece and we were just spending some family time together.

At one point Sammiejo insisted that she saw someone, “or maybe a ghost” in a darkened window of the house out in front of the car. I thought it was just her childish imagination at the time and completely dismissed the notion that we weren’t alone. I found out years later that there was in fact a homeless woman in the house at the time, and she saw me in the car but thought only that we were young lovers looking for privacy from our parents. She gave the police a very vague description of me and my car when she came forward after seeing the publicity about the bodies being found in a shallow grave over a year later by a construction crew that was clearing the land for a new office building.

After I tried (and failed) to rape the girls inside the abandoned house (still oblivious to the woman inside also), I masturbated to achieve climax, then took the girls into a patch of trees next to the house and killed them as quickly and cleanly as I could. Then I hid their bodies in some berry briars, wrapped the VHS-C tape I had made in an oily rag and hid it in the engine compartment under the hood (in case I got pulled over on the way home – a pretty stupid thing to do I realize now), then drove back to my apartment at the Tuscany. (I hid the video tape under a false step in my apartment, but only kept it a few days before I destroyed it in the microwave and threw it away). I didn’t keep any other souvenirs.

The next day was a Saturday. I drove back out to Bothell to make sure there was nothing happening around the abandoned farm house. Then I stopped at a Home Depot and bought and pick and shovel (again, stupidly). Then I drove home and waited until the wee hours of the next morning (2 or 3 a.m.) before driving back to the farm house, and burying the girls beneath a pile of old rotting wood. (I used the pile of wood to cover any signs of that something had been buried there.) Then I hid the shovel and pick in the abandoned barn that stood about 50 yards from the house, and went home again, exhausted.

The missing girls were in the news, but there was a lot of speculation that they had run away. That week my parole officer came to see me at work (something she had never done before) and she brought a “trainee” with her for the interview. We met at a cafeteria near the officer where I worked and she asked me a bunch of questions about why I had asked permission to visit my father in Nevada on short notice. I told her that my grandmother had fallen ill (she had) and I wanted to offer help and support during the crisis. Of course the real reason I wanted to go was to get as far away from the crime scene as possible (another stupid move), which I knew she suspected. I also knew that the man with her was no trainee. He sat quietly the whole time, clearly paying careful attention to me, but not acting nervous or apologetic the way a normal trainee would. Besides, I had never heard of parole officer trainees, and doubted if there even was such a thing. Of course he was a detective, and they we rechecking me out as a possible suspect. I’m sure that if they knew how close we were to those little girls’ bodies as we ate lunch that day I would have been more than a casual suspect. But, they didn’t know, and my nonchalance about the whole meeting seemed to put them both at ease. I know now, from Federal court proceedings more than ten years later, that I never became a serious suspect in this case, not even after the bodies were found (at which time I was in the King County jail, in Seattle, for absconding parole, and they “investigated” me again as a possible suspect, again under a transparent “cover”, (i.e. pretending to be another inmate that I could tell was a cop almost as soon as I saw him because of the way he acted all wrong), and I again played it off nonchalantly and this never became a serious suspect).

A couple of weeks later I moved in with Joe and Ed and gave up my Tuscany studio. This was a definite step backwards that totally disrupted all the progress I had been making before. I started getting high with my new roommates almost every day, which of course resulted in my getting a “dirty U.A.” (urine analysis) for cannabis (I’ve never used meth in my life, despite what some of my “official” records assume), which in itself is not enough to get my parole revoked, but the gun incident with my brother was.

Joe and Ed, as I have already mentioned, were a gay couple. I’m not really sure about what that means though. I only actually had sex with them once, upon Joe’s invitation. But, I’m not really sure if I’d call what we did “sex”. They were into weird stuff that I’d only read a little about in novels once in a while, but never took an active interest in myself. They must have sensed my disinterest, because I never got invited to have “sex” with them again.

Because I now lived about 20 miles from downtown, and away from all of my favorite anonymous sex parks, I started frequenting a nearby park, that was usually completely deserted at night when I liked to go. I would park in a secluded location then go into the woods and take off my clothes then run around naked and masturbate to fantasies of letting men I meet use me for sex. It remained a mere fantasy, for that particular park at least, but it was more than enough to keep me sexually satisfied.

On Halloween my “girlfriend” Dee stopped by Joe and Ed’s house so she and her girls could show off their costumes. They came inside and visited for less than ten minutes in the living room only. Apparently because I stayed (and didn’t run out the back door or something) after the children arrived I had violated another condition of my parole (i.e. no contact with minors without prior approval). Actually, the violation hinged on the fact that I greeted them and complimented them on their costumes. My parole officer had told me previously that some brief contact with minors was okay, as long as I did not initiate it or prolong it. I felt well within those limitations during this visit, but that pig polygraph examiner apparently felt otherwise and put it down as another violation in his report.

So, one day I got a call at work from my parole officer asking me to come to her office that afternoon. I had to leave work early to make the unusual appointment, which I did. And when I arrived at her office two policemen were waiting to arrest me for violating parole. My parole officer apologized for the arrest explaining she got orders from the parole board against her recommendations, to have me arrested. She said I would be held until I could have a parole hearing (about a month), and she assured me that she was on my side.

I was held in the King County Jail for one day, and then, to my great surprise, and horror, I was unceremoniously transported on the prison bus to the Receiving Center in Shelton, Washington. That was the place where the nightmare of my incarceration really began, where I was beat up and repeatedly raped as a kid, and where I first discovered the true meaning of despair. It was the place where the very foundation of my rage was laid, and returning me there now was like pouring gas on an ember that I had hoped to let die after I’d killed those girls and vented the bulk of my rage against society. It seems now, in hindsight, as though some sinister plan had been laid and my rage was intentionally refueled by sending me to Shelton for that month to await my fate once more before the parole board. Being there made me feel like the nightmare was starting all over against from the beginning, and that it would never truly end.

But, I kept calm, and stayed out of trouble, even passing up a pinner (marijuana joint) that someone offered me out of sheer respect for the queen they knew me to be (I wasn’t being flamboyant at this point, nor even looking for sex, but I was well known throughout the state prisons as “Jazzi” and my reputation apparently carried in my absence).

They moved a man into my cell the first week I was there whom I knew to be an informant from my connections in the past. But, he didn’t know that I knew, so when he started pumping me for information about my activities on the streets I kept the information I gave him on the up-and-up, and “confessed” to things that weren’t really illegal in order to make him think he had my confidence. I’m not sure, but there’s a good chance that the whole “violation” arrest was a ploy on part of the police and parole office just to get me in a cell with this rat so he could feel me out on the two girls who were still missing. He was obviously pumping me for information, and the story he gave for why he himself was violated was obviously contrived (I didn’t ask, but he insisted on telling me, a sure sign that he was on the make).

But, I was well aware of such tricks, and whether he was on an assignment specifically aimed at me, or just pumping me for info on G.P., didn’t matter because I didn’t tell him anything genuinely incriminating. And when I saw the parole board after one month they reinstated my parole, with some superficial new conditions (to make it look good I suppose) and let me go. The only problem was now I was so angry, and terrified at the same time, that there was no chance in hell I was gonna finish my parole.

From the very moment I walked out of that jail (they’d brought me back to Seattle for the parole hearing, so I was released from the County Jail immediately, after the hearing) I knew I wasn’t going to stick around, and I knew that another serving of “justice” was in order.

Because of the parole violation I lost my job as an Inside Sales Rep Liaison at the software company. But the Temp agency quickly placed me with another Web-based software company called iCat (which has since gone defunct and now a new and completely different company has that same name) located on two floors of the Seattle City Centre Building downtown, one of the most beautiful office buildings in the city! The new job didn’t pay as much, but I was very proud to work in that building. I was hired to process data from customers that the company collected from their Website, and to call and interview customers about their use and satisfaction with the company’s flagship product (Internet Catalog software, thus the name iCat, pronounced “eye-cat”). I was actually given responsibility for the entire interview process, including what questions to ask. I used my telemarketing skills to develop a fixed script that I typed up and submitted to my supervisor. They were so impressed by the job I did, and the results I was getting (i.e. useful customer feedback), that they brought in two more temps from the temp agency and put me in charge of them. I trained them, much as I had been trained at Time Life Libraries, and supervised their calls fulltime (i.e. I no longer made customer calls myself) and collated the data they generated. I was also given more responsibility for generating other reports from the web data that went straight to the sales V.P., which I handed to him personally once a week. I actually improved the report in ways that got me some kudos from the V.P. himself.

But, the job still didn’t pay much (only about ten dollars an hour if I remember right), so I decided to go back to Time Life Libraries part time as well, so I’d have enough income to build the capital I needed to abscond (I figured I needed at least a few thousand dollars if I wanted to make a good run for it, i.e. last long enough to complete my revenge!).

Of course, I was still getting high (marijuana only) almost every day with Joe and Ed, even though one of the new conditions of my parole said that if I got another dirty urine test I would be automatically violated. But, I had no intention of sticking around long enough to get another piss test. But my parole officer must have sensed my skittishness --- it couldn’t have been too hard for her to miss --- and she ordered another U.A. sooner than I expected.

I had only been back out for a couple of months and had only saved up just under two-thousand dollars from working two jobs. I pissed dirty on a Friday, and by the time my parole officer showed up at Joe and Ed’s house with two cops to have me arrested on Monday morning I was no longer even in the state of Washington.

Once I left the state without permission I was officially an escape and no longer considered to be in custody. So everything that happened next, including the kidnap, rape, and murder of a ten-year-old Southern California boy named Anthony, won’t be included in this “What Happened In Prison”-series. Instead, I’ll pick up again, with Part VII – The Last Laugh, when I am arrested again in Missouri and taken back to prison in Washington to skip through the last three years of my 20-year-sentence, and “maxing out” to be released with no more parole. I call it “The Last Laugh” because I knew I had taken my revenge and killed three innocent children, and yet I was released after just three years with no parole!

Even one day of freedom after the crimes I had committed would have been enough to make me laugh victoriously; I had almost five years of underserved freedom before the system once more reminded me that laughing was not allowed for people like me, and I lashed out once more…

But, that’s another confession altogether.

The Interaction Transition House (I.T. House)

   The I.T. House in Seattle, Washington, was established as a parole destination for convicts by an x-con named Herb Smith. Herb was a short stalky black man with a friendly disposition. I only met him a few times while I was still in prison. He, and other volunteers from the I.T. House would come and visit each of several nearby prisons (namely, Shelton, McNeil, and Monroe) on a weekly basis to sponsor group meetings where prospective I.T. House parolees would vie for acceptance into the program. Prisoners were required to attend these meetings for at least one year before submitting their application. Once you were accepted by the I.T. House for parole your plans were almost guaranteed to be approved by the parole board. I say, “almost”, only because my plans to parole to the I.T. House were denied the first time I submitted them after I was accepted by Herb and a group vote in 1988. At the time, no one had heard of such a denial before, and I didn’t find out until years later (after a friend hired a lawyer for me) that the reason for the denial was because I had come out in prison as openly “gay” (i.e. a “queen”), on the advice and with support from the prison psychologist. The parole board denied my plans, against the psychologist’s recommendation, because in their (unsupported) opinion I was exhibiting “unstable sexual behavior” (though I had no infractions or disciplinary reports for any sexual behavior at all --- unlike most openly gay prisoners).

   I was eventually paroled to the I.T. House in Seattle (the only one at that time), but only after serving another five years in prison as a direct result of the parole boards bias against my “sexual behavior” (i.e. open homosexuality). By that time Herb Smith had died of natural causes (i.e. old age) and the I.T. program was itself in an unstable state of transition from private ownership to a state sponsored and fully accredited program. Once the state took over the program, and expanded it by opening more houses around the state, its notorious success rates (i.e. non-recidivism) plummeted down to state averages of my other halfway house.

   But the I.T. House, as Herb Smith first established it, was anything but a halfway house (where parolees work and live in the community under severe restrictions on their freedom). Herb based his program on one very simple idea: that in order for an x-con to survive on the streets (i.e. not re-offend or otherwise recidivate) he had to feel like he belonged there.

   Herb understood, better than any state official ever would, how social pressures and a lack of social support (i.e. acceptance) drove most x-cons right back to prison. So he privately established the I.T. House as a parole destination with one main purpose: to shelter x-cons from negative social pressure by providing a haven of acceptance and support. He knew that a huge part of the pressure that drove so many x-cons back to criminal behavior was the result of the very rules and conditions that were supposed to “protect society” from the x-cons. So Herb was adamant about there being only one rule at the I.T. House; a rule that all x-cons could understand and appreciate: “respect the house!”

   Every new arrival at the house got a speech from Herb about the meaning of “respect the house”. It simply meant to show the same consideration and respect for the other x-cons living there that you would show for another convict in prison. In essence, it was the “convict code” reapplied to the house; remarkably simple, but extremely meaningful for every convict who ended up there. The “code” not only provided a clear guideline for acceptable behavior, it also gave the x-cons something familiar to cling to in an often whirling, unfriendly, and unfamiliar new world. They still had all their parole restrictions and stipulations, but Herb told them right up front that enforcing their parole was not his job, or anyone else’s at the I.T. House. His job was only to provide support, and he needed the x-cons’ respect in order to do that. He got their respect with his “respect the house” rule, and it worked.

   The I.T. House became the most successful parole program in the state. They routinely accepted the hardest cases, and yet the recidivism rates were almost non-existent. Herb quickly earned the respect and admiration of not just the x-cons he helped “transition” back to life in society, but also of the prison administrations, who soon started letting Herb, and other I.T. volunteers, come into the prisons to help start the “transition” process. And these “volunteers” weren’t your typical Christian do-gooders either. They were genuinely compassionate people, who shared Herb’s heartfelt conviction that convicts are people too.

   Betty Ruth was one such volunteer, and a commendable force all on her own. Nobody called her Betty thought, I only found out her first name when the defense investigators for my current case contacted her for me and told me what it was. Everybody just called her “Ruth”, and even though she had a doctorates degree (in psychology I’ve been told, but not by her), if you ever called her “Doctor Ruth” she’d bite your head off. She was Ruth, a proudly wrinkled little old black lady who you’d expect to meet in a black alley pushing a shopping cart full of her valuables.

   But she was no bag lady. Even though she drove an old ‘70’s boat of car that could barely rattle down the road and was spray painted with words like “love” and “peace” all over it, she was an independently well-to-do home owner in Seattle proper, which I only found out because I had a friend who worked in the county revenue office who told me how everyone in his office knew about her because she’d come into the office once a year and plop down a considerable amount of money, in cash, to pay her property taxes. To say that Ruth was eccentric would only begin to express how different she was; I love her deeply to this day, though I have hardly even known her company (in person at least).

   The first time I met Ruth was at one of the prison I.T. group meetings at McNeil Island in 1988. One of the inmates at the meeting was whining about something trivial when Ruth suddenly threw herself on the floor in the middle of the group circle. She rolled onto her back and started waving her arms and legs in the air like a distressed infant and wailed like one too. Thus getting everyone’s attention she then sat up, looked at the now stunned into silence inmate who had just been whining about how own problems and said, “That’s how you sound; like a giant baby crying for attention!”

   Nobody laughed. I think everyone respected Ruth too much to laugh unless she laughed first. But she didn’t laugh. She just kept looking right at that now sorry inmate until she felt her point was made. Then she got back into her chair and pointedly gave the floor to someone else. I’ve respected her deeply ever since. Though most people just think she’s crazy, I know better.

   Once, years later, while I was living at the I.T. House in Seattle on parole, I was depressed over a bad job interview or something, but was keeping it to myself (I’m not a whiney person by nature). I was standing by the sink in the kitchen at the house. When she saw me she blurted out from across the room, “Jet! What’s wrong!?” as she held out her arms and came and gave me a big Ruth hug (she hugged a lot, and was the only person I knew with whom I didn’t mind getting a hug from). I immediately got emotional and didn’t even know why until I thought about it later. I didn’t cry, of course, I was still too deep in my shell for that. But when I looked at her I saw that she was crying! Real tears, for me! I knew then and there that somehow she could feel my feelings, but only because she had caught me with my guard down. I later learned that she was one-quarter Native American, and considered herself to be a shaman, though I never heard her ever use the term myself. I believe she is now though, in the truest sense.

   When I first arrived at the I.T. House in 1994 the director, attempting to fill Herb Smith’s shoes, was an ambitious middle aged bureaucratic leech named Paul Ajzenman (sp?). Picture the short fat balding guy on “Kramer” and you’ll have a good image in your mind of Paul. As far as I know he never attended the prison meetings, he was too “important” for that kind of menial responsibility. He always seemed nice enough with everyone he dealt with, but that was just it, he “dealt” with people as problems, or puzzles, to be worked to his advantage. And the I.T. House was a major project of his. I knew Paul was a typical bureaucrat the first time I met him on my first day out of prison, fresh from the airport. We met formally in his office and one of the first things he told me was that there was only one rule at the I.T. House, “respect the house”. But, when he tried to explain what that meant I could tell he didn’t even know. Then as our conversation continued he started causally informing me of all the other “expectations” (i.e. rules) like paying rent on time (Herb never enforced rent payments), abiding parole conditions, and even a new curfew for entering and exiting the house; just to name a few. Ruth told me later that Herb was rolling circles in his grave because of what Paul was doing to the I.T. House (i.e. institutionalizing it!).

   You see, Paul had no interest in helping x-cons “transition” to the real world, except insofar as it lined his pockets. I didn’t know it at the time, but I found out later that Paul had already established a drug addict rehabilitation service center that bilked money from the state coffers by providing life “counseling” for addicts in treatment programs elsewhere. It all looked great on paper, as if Paul was a real public servant providing needed social services. But if his drug program was anything like what he turned the I.T. House into then the only service it provided was all bureaucratic lie.

   Apparently the “social services” Paul set up for drug addicts required very little of his personal attention (as a true leech would have it), so he could work full-time at preparing the I.T. House for official state funding. That means rules, rules, and more rules; no state program could possibly run without rules. He submitted numerous reports, applications, reviews, and whatever else it took to get money from the state for the program, and all the while made himself out to be the great savior of the I.T. House. According to him, without state funding the house would be forced to shut down because Herb’s surviving wife, who inherited the house and property, had sold it all and the new owners (a group of investors who were never named, but I have no doubt now --- given hindsight --- that Paul was one of them) raised the rent so high that there was simply no way the rents collected from the x-cons living there could ever cover it, not even close. But, state funding could “supplement” the needed rent, not to mention pay competitive salaries for essential staff (i.e. the director, who, of course, was Paul). All hail Paul Ajzenman for coming to the rescue of a program he was helping to drown!

   I didn’t piece all this bureaucratic waggling together until years later, but I didn’t need to know about Paul’s “business” arrangements at the time to see what kind of person he was. In fact, I tended to treat him with the same general respect I would give anyone, until one day at a weekly group meeting at the I.T. House (at which attendance was now “mandatory” for all residents at the house) Paul said something to me that made me swear to never speak to him again. With one seemingly innocuous statement, that was actually meant to be high praise for me, I knew everything I needed to know about Paul as a human being; he was a bigot of the worst sort --- the kind who has no clue of the depth and destructiveness of his bigotry.

   At the time I wasn’t even a resident at the house. I had long since gotten a job, and saved enough money to move into a nicely refurbished studio apartment closer to downtown Seattle. I was only attending the meeting with a friend of mine, Dave, who was the gay lover who helped me get out of prison (by hiring an attorney for me) in the first place. Dave was now official on the I.T. House staff roster as a “sponsor” (he later became the “counselor” for gay x-cons). Dave was a good man, but when I tried to explain to him later why I suddenly demanded that we leave (he was my ride), he couldn’t understand why. All he heard was Paul’s high praise. What I heard was an insult of the worst kind.

   The group meeting had already broken up, but Dave and I were hanging around as expected to socialize. Because of my status as a “successful” x-resident of the I.T. House I enjoyed enough prestige to warrant the director’s attention. So, Dave and I ended up in a clique conversation with Paul and the soon-to-be new director, Tom Tiecher (more about Tom in a moment), standing in a closed circle in the foyer with our paper cups of coffee and donuts talking about something I have no reason to recall.

   But, what I do recall is that after I had just made some appropriately intelligent sounding interjection into the fourway conversation with good timing and plenty of savior faire, there was a gratifying pause as my statement was thoughtfully absorbed by the group. And then Paul looked at me with a big smile and said with great praise in his voice, “You know, Jet, just standing here like this having an ordinary conversation it’s easy for me to forget that you’re an x-con.”

   I looked at him blankly; or, at least my mind was blank, but the expression on my face must have betrayed my hurt and confusion over the implications of what Paul had just said, because Dave told me later that it was clear to everyone that I was upset by the statement, though no one could understand why.

   After a moment of saying nothing while the conversation continued without me I finally decided that I was, indeed, just severely insulted. And, as I remember it, I simply turned around and walked out the front door without saying good-bye or anything (I may have said something to Dave, like, “I’m leaving,” but I don’t remember specifically). A few moments later Dave caught up with me outside by his car. Even though Dave was just as clueless as Paul and Tom about the reason I was so hurt by Paul’s “praise”, I told him that I would never speak to Paul again --- I knew if I did that I would not be able to conceal my anger; and concealing anger was very important to me at the time --- and I never have- (And in case you too are puzzled by this “insult”, try imagining a similar conversation in the pre-civil war North between a free black business man and three whites, when suddenly one of the white men blurts out, “You’re pretty smart for a negro!” I doubt if the black man would feel very complimented no matter how sincerely the white man meant it. In fact, the more sincere he was, the more insulting the statement would be!) The fact that the I.T. House was being taken over by men who could not see the insult in a statement like that was all the indication I needed that everything Herb Smith had built was soon to be completely destroyed by the wrecking balls of ignorance and state sanctioned bigotry; not to mention green in the guise of social service.

   Tom Tiecher eventually took over the director-ship of the I.T. House, after Paul had set up the cash flow pumps and turned his attention to other prospects. Tom wasn’t a leech like Paul, but he was a bureaucratic parasite, taking money from the system while constantly trying to convince himself that he earns it. Tom was a very typical “counselor” type, constantly providing “counseling” because he thought that’s what he got paid for. To illustrate the sickness of this mentality (and the harm that it can do to “innocent” people) let me relay a little story about Tom as well.

   About a year or so after the incident in the I.T. House foyer, I had made friends with an attractive older “African American” nymph who called herself Dee. We had met at work (telemarketing) after she had learned I knew something about computers and asked me to help her buy a PC clone for her family at an auction, which I did. I ended up giving her personal computer lessons (she was very intelligent and learned fast) which very quickly became very personal and we consequently became very good friends even though she was married with two preteen girls.

   I had told Dee early on that I had been in prison for half my life and what for (“raping” a boy), but she didn’t seem to let that bother her. Though she’d never been in trouble with the police herself, she had been around x-cons enough to not be afraid of them, or me.

   But more about Dee elsewhere; the important thing here is that she fell in love with me and (or) wanted to have my baby (which never happened, but not for lack of trying). So when she started asking a lot of questions (we had a very open communicative relationship; the kind I like) about my past life in prison, I thought taking her as a guest to an I.T. House meeting would be a great way to show her a part of my “Prison life” world first hand. So I asked her if she’d like to go to one and she said yes.

   We showed up unannounced (which was the practice) on a Wednesday night for one of the weekly meetings. I remember that there was more people there than I had ever seen, a real crowd with barely room for everyone to sit on all the couches and chairs in the living room (with chairs brought in from the kitchen and everywhere else, even from Tom Tiecher’s office). It was crowded, I learned, because of the new mandatory attendance rule.

   Tom was there, of course, and so was Ruth, though she remained watchful as ever, she was uncharacteristically silent throughout the meeting. I only learned later the reason why; because she generally only spoke when she knew her words commanded the respect they deserved, and this new I.T. House, under Tom and Paul, didn’t even know the meaning of respect. The fat that she was there at all was out of love and respect for Herb. But even that wasn’t enough to warrant regular attendance from her. I was lucky to see her that night.

   The meeting went pretty much as I expected, and had even warned Dee that it would; according to a very institutional format with Tom at the helm at all times steering the meeting instead of letting it go wherever I wanted the way Herb used to do it. At one point an “issue” was brought up concerning an empty beer bottle that had turned up in the kitchen trash (where only a “cop” would look for something like that).

   The issue was treated seriously and very formally. Questions were raised, and there was some discussion about what should be done about it. There were several suggestions, monitoring refrigerator contents, imposing spot checks on bags brought into the house, etc. Toward the end of the entire discussion I finally broke my silence and said what Ruth told me later she had wanted to say, but didn’t because she knew (wiser than me) that it would not be respected; and it wasn’t. In fact, I was practically attacked by the group, all at Tom’s guidance.

   I pointed out that the beer bottle was not the problem. The problem was that obviously someone was in trouble, and the bottle was their way of letting someone know, and instead of responding supportively, as Herb would have done, all “The House” was doing was threatening discipline and sanctions that would only drive whoever needed help further down that road of isolation and abandonment that would inevitably lead to recidivism.

   But, the “group” didn’t see it that way. A house rule had been broken and I was being irresponsible to think it could just be “ignored”.

   I tried to counter that I wasn’t suggesting it be “ignored”, but instead that it be “embraced”, or rather, the person who left the bottle in the trash should be embraced, because that’s clearly what he needed, not “discipline”.

   At this point Dee spoke up bravely in my defense, saying something intelligent and prudent to my cause. Because she was a guest she could not be “attacked” as easily as I could be, so Tom took control and promptly ended the discussion, which also concluded the meeting, but before breaking up Tom asked me and Dee to join him in his office.

   I honestly and innocently thought that he just wanted to have a private conversation so maybe he could ask how I’d been, since it had been so long since he’d seen me, or perhaps he would even thank me for attending the meeting and bringing a guest (i.e. showing support for the program). Boy was I naïve!

   After we entered the office, dragging a couple of chair in from the meeting, Tom promptly closed the door and took up his position behind the desk; the position of authority, which I’m sure now was the real reason he wanted us in his office before he assaulted us; to establish his authority firstly and clearly, which is something bureaucrats like him do instinctively without even thinking. He needed to establish the wall between us and him, so he’d be protected from any emotional cost, and/or damage. Herb never had a desk, or at least not one like Tom’s or Paul’s that he could sit behind and feel safe, distant, and above.

   Tom never asked how I’d been, nor did he thank me for showing my support. Instead he told me he was concerned about me (why do they always say that) because I was “thinking like an addict”. He used my attempt to “support an alcoholic” as his evidence. And then he accused Dee of being co-dependent by supporting me!

   At first I responded automatically and, of course, defensively, which I’m sure he noted as another indication of my “problem”. I told him that I could care less about the alcohol, and the only thing I was trying to support was the idea of support. I began to engage Tom on an intellectual level and was ready to defend myself thoroughly. In my mind Tom was the one who needed a lesson, and I was going to give him one. I knew I could easily beat Tom intellectually; I’d done it many times before. He would eventually surrender his poorly reasoned position without conceding my superior one. So, he’d learn nothing (people like him seldom do because they think they know everything they need to know and that keeps them from ever admitting that they don’t know anything; which is, as readers of this blog should know, the beginning of real wisdom).

   But, just as I was gearing up for the skirmish I glanced at Dee next to me and saw instantly that she was crying, but trying not to show it! That threw me, because Dee didn’t cry. She was one of the strongest people I knew, one of the few who could stand my rash intellectualizing. But apparently something had snapped, or at least was about to. All my attention immediately shifted to her. “What’s wrong”, I asked. But she couldn’t answer. Her emotions had already choked off her words. This was bad. This was VERY bad!

   Paul insulting me and hurting my feelings was one thing. But whatever Tom did to hurt the feelings of someone I cared deeply about was way over the top! I took Dee’s hand and said, “Come on…” and got up to leave. But she was still trying to be respectful of Tom’s authority, authority that I didn’t recognize at all, despite all of his airs. I don’t remember clearly what happened next, I was way too upset. But somehow I got Dee to leave with me before Tom could finish his “well intended” lecture. This time I was the ride, but once we got in my car I only drove a few blocks (to get away from the I.T. House and any chance of being disturbed) then parked in an empty parking lot near a busy street and waited for Dee to calm down enough to tell me what was wrong.

   Dee and I had many long heartfelt conversations parked like this, so there was nothing unusual about that. The level of emotion was unusual tough, so I just held her hand until she was ready to talk. She told me that she felt Tom and I had conspired together against her, to “teach her a lesson” of some sort. She felt threatened and confused by our hostile familiarity with each other, like it was all some sort of act for her benefit. She simply wasn’t accustomed to feeling on the “outside” of a conversation like that, so she assumed we were playing a game at her expense.

   I understood instantly why she was so upset, and apologized profusely for putting her in such a position, then assured her that there was nothing close to conspiratorial between me and Tom at all. Yes, we were unfortunately quite familiar, but only in the way two cats who don’t like each other but are forced to live in the same house are familiar. I would never plot to “help” someone that way (i.e. by manipulating their emotions), it went against everything I believed. (Not even in my crimes did I ever play such “head games”. I could never be THAT cruel!) We hugged for a while until we both felt better, then I drove her home.

   That was the last time I had anything to do at all with the I.T. House. The last I heard is that the program has spawned several branches in different parts of Washington state, but no longer provides housing for z-cons at all. They only provide “counseling services” now, all at the state’s expense (way to go Paul!)